


colors and varnish

by mickleborger



Category: Malpertuis
Genre: Gen, I have no idea if it's tacky to tag it with Prometheus but, I mean he is and also apparently this fandom doesn't exist yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 23:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mickleborger/pseuds/mickleborger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An old toothless god wanders the halls in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	colors and varnish

It is dark and the boarding-house chatters.  He, too, chatters - his teeth with cold, his tongue with fever.  His fingers thinner than splinters cradle the light that has never been his atop a candle he should never have made.  His eyes are wide and sunken and he watched the light, watches the walls.  His face is drawn and his grin set.

It is late and the boarding-house wakes.  He, too, wakes.  His legs carry him up and down the stairs as the hours pass, and he mutters to himself, mutters to the house.  The others are asleep so he mutters to the house.  The house mutters back.

It is night and only night when he is safe and the light is his own (in the darkness it does not matter how long he stole it).  The light is safe.  In the day the light is harsh and burning, and brings with it fear and the ghost of pain, of pride, of insolence; of little claws and crooked beaks and wicked eyes and tearing flesh.  In the day the light is cruel.

It is day and the others rise and he trembles under the stairs and envies.  The others do not know; they have forgotten.  Perhaps they are happy with forgetting.  Perhaps they are gladder for not knowing how frail they have become.  But he knows, in bits.  He remembers, in flashes.  He is old, too old, older than all of them; and he bows his head in the dark and cradles his belly and whimpers.  He does not whisper; they would find him.  But his thin cracked lips form half-words, un-sounds:

Pro-- is it an e or an i?  Promise?  Promise _us_?

(What are words when your throat is parched?)

It is night again and the boarding-house is not a boarding-house.  He lights a candle.


End file.
